World Championship Wrap-Up

After much suspense I have finally sat down to write a long-awaited post.  This post will include all the juicy details of my race at the Sprint Triathlon World Championship in Gold Coast, Australia.

Early race morning we got up and took off to get ready for a 7:14am start time.  This was not that difficult because of our enormous time change.  The few days leading up to the race we tried to keep a schedule of going to bed early and waking up early. I did some brief jogging near the race site and then threw on my wetsuit.  I left my gear with my wonderful wife (I didn’t realize what a problem that would cause – she had to lug my stuff across the course, with an infant, to try to take pictures of me!).  I then did a brief swim warm-up in the warm-up area and then headed over to the “loading area”.  I met up with a few other Americans in my age group and we joked around to lighten up the anxiety. After the 20-24 age group took off we were allowed to line up along the beach.

Swim

The start was a little crazy, as all starts are, but this was because everyone was so competitive.  I don’t think I got out into an amazing position.  I got squished from both sides so I had to wait a little before I could start to swim my way forward towards the faster swimmers.  After we rounded the first buoy the smaller groups began to form.

During triathlons here in Utah the athletes in the swim get strung out, but in this race there were so many highly talented racers that they were all fast, so everyone seems up near the front, which means there are groups during the entire swim.  I’ve never really had to worry about whether someone on either side of me was going to hit or kick me – for the entire race!

I came out of the swim feeling pretty good, but not knowing what my position was (19th).  I knew I was close to quite a few others in my age group.

We ran towards our bikes – but wait!  Where was my bike?!  Shoot!  I passed it!  I had to run back.  I ended up dropping 6 places in transition!  I have never had trouble finding my bike so of course it would happen in the World Championship.

I grabbed my bike and the rest of transition was smooth (running about 100 yards to the mount line and swiftly jumping on my bike and sliding my feet into the shoes after I’ve reached a decent speed).

Bike

The bike portion was a little different than a normal bike section of a triathlon.  This was not because of big hills or sharp turns, this was because of drafting.  Drafting is where you position yourself behind another rider and he/she blocks the air for you, so you kind of get sucked along.  Anyways, this race is non-draft legal (illegal to draft).  However, because there were so many athletes that were starting at staggered times, and the course was two loops, there was no way to stay away from other bikers.  This made large groups of riders and the officials couldn’t really do anything about it.  So, if you weren’t drafting, you were at a disadvantage.  I was one of those that didn’t get to draft.  I passed a lot of people, but I must not have been up with the lead pack from my age group and I wasn’t far enough back to be with another pack.  I still had a good bike time, but afterwards I saw that those who were comparable in bike strength to me ended up gaining about a minute on me with the help of drafting.

I finished the bike in 16th position in my age group (I had the 18th fastest bike time in the age group – this is rather poor for me).  Once again I came off the bike smoothly and quickly into the run to transition.  My running shoes slipped on easily and I was off.

Run

As with all triathlons, the first portion of the run is the hardest.  It is a huge mental game.  You just feel like you want to stop and walk, but you can’t!  You have to push yourself through it.  About a quarter of a mile into the run an American passed me.  I tried to hang with him, but he was going very fast.  At the time I actually thought I was in the top five of my age group (about ten off) and thought I might be able to catch a few racers and place in the top three.

I’ve found that having a mindset of catching the person in front of you is better than just trying not to get caught by the person behind you.  Even though I was motivated to catch those in front of me, I was running as hard as possible because I knew that another American athlete was closing in on me – Devan Tandy.  Devan actually lives in Utah as well.  We know each other from racing.  At Nationals Devan and I ran out of T2 (the bike-to-run transition) at the same time, but he ended up running his way to beat me by one minute.

Now, at Worlds, I had a lead on him from the swim (there ended up being no swim at Nationals – see Nationals Race Report), but I didn’t know what my lead was.  At about mile one I found out what my lead was because of a short out-and-back section.   My lead wasn’t much.  I probably only had a few minutes before he would catch me.  See, up until this race, I felt that my run was my weak spot – and I think it still is – but I didn’t realize how much things can change when you’ve put in the time to improve it, and you have the Lord’s help.

I just ran as hard as I knew I could.  I kept a high cadence,  forward lean, and letting my legs just swing behind me – all of the things I’ve been working on to improve my run.  I felt amazing.  I could breath well and my legs weren’t giving out on me.  All of my hard interval sessions were paying off.  At another turn-around I didn’t think to watch for Devan so I didn’t know how close he was.

Now I was into the last mile of the race I blazed past another athlete in my age group (your age is written on your calf).  Then there was another one.  This Australian seemed a little more formidable.  I wanted to pass him with enough speed that he wouldn’t even think he could stay with me (a psychological thing).  I did so and felt pretty good.  I knew it was a pace that I couldn’t keep forever so I slowed a little.  I turned down another street that wound around for the final quarter-mile of the race.  I was almost there!  I started to push it a little more.

With 200 yards to go I made the final curve towards the finish line.  With 100 yards I entered the blue finish carpet… and then I saw the Australian come past me (the same one I had passed previously).  He was in a full-out sprint.  I kicked it in with all I had even though he had gotten a head start on the sprint, catching me off guard.  I was running so hard that I no longer had feeling for my body.  My muscles were now so oxygen-deprived and completely in an anaerobic state that I was literally only running on adrenaline.  Through this effort I was making up the gap between myself and the Australian… but it was too late.  I crossed the finish line about a foot behind him.  We actually both finished at 1:05:47!

You can see the finish line footage for yourself HERE (video starts at 1:38, I cross at 2:12).

Take-Aways

I am really happy with the race.  Yes, I can try to kill myself over how I could have done, had I not passed my bike in transition, or if I had pushed it just a little harder at the end and beaten that Australian.  I am very happy with my finish though.  I don’t need to mentally rip apart my race.  Now, had I barely missed placing in my age division… I might have.

Another thing that made me very happy was to see how far my run had come.  I did not get passed by Devan Tandy.  I ended up running a 19:01 5k.  This was only 12 seconds slower than Devan’s run (remember that at Nationals a month and a half before, he ran a minute faster than I did).  Even though I consider my run to be my weak spot, I had the 11th fastest run time in my age group, whereas my swim was 19th fastest and bike was 18th fastest.  I know believe in myself and that I can really turn my run into a third strength (fourth if you count transitions).

Here are my results:
Swim: 12:46
T1: 1:50
Bike: 31:20
T2: 0:52
Run: 19:01
Total: 1:05:47

Age Group Place: 2nd American, 14th in World (moved up one spot after initial results were posted)
Overall: 10th American, 125th in World (one age group’s results are still messed up, so I’m guessing around 105)